


Might just have gathered

by lbmisscharlie



Series: Take bountifully and smile and go away [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Chance Meetings, Conversations, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dottie reaches for one of her cream buns, takes a bite. “You look just the same,” she says, flatly, as she swallows, a lie, a resistance.</i>
</p>
<p>Dottie and Peggy, a chance meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Might just have gathered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [breathedout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/gifts).



The tea is – not good. It is, at once, too bitter and not strong enough; the milk she stirs in makes it an anemic beige. It does, however, come with two cream buns on a chipped plate and entirely lacks an accompaniment of well-meaning but tedious villagers who remember her from when she was only _this high_. It is also, incidentally, still better than any cup she’s had stateside in her three decades’ residency, excepting those made by the hands of Ana or Edwin. 

She sips it. 

“Black doesn’t suit you.” Peggy blinks. A slim hand – pale; short nails – taps the edge of the table. 

“It was always your color,” she says in return. The chair scrapes against the wood floor as Dottie pulls it away from the table. A deliberate provocation. Peggy should know; she’s seen her do it enough times in enough cells and interrogation rooms. 

Peggy doesn’t lift her gaze until Dottie is seated. “You’ve aged.” She wears her hair in a cropped bob, neither the honey blonde or deep brunette of years past, but a muted brown, mottled with grey. The years – and, too likely, the USSR – have not been kind to her eyes, which though still a sharp tactless blue are surrounded by crepey skin, grey under a layer of powder. Her cheekbones and jawline are softer under aging flesh. 

Dottie reaches for one of her cream buns, takes a bite. “You look just the same,” she says, flatly, as she swallows, a lie, a resistance.

“Well,” Peggy says drily. “Happiness and satisfaction, you know.” She’s not sure what Dottie knows of SHIELD; the last time Peggy had evidence to connect her to any official channels had been in ’66; things have changed. 

“Is _that_ the secret?” Dottie’s eyes widen, a flutter of curled eyelashes. Peggy swallows. She remembers Kiev, and letting herself watch Dottie’s pursed lipsticked lips, the ingénue tilt to her chin, and enjoying their shared knowledge in its falsity. Kiev had stayed with her, a long decade and a half of parsing out coded references to the Black Widow and seeing her face, coy and sharp, in lines of text.

She hadn’t thought they’d next meet in London on the cold grey day she buried her mother. 

“Are you not happy, Dottie?” she says, and sips her tea. Her mother had been so active in the Women’s Institute, the ladies in the village had told her, such a counselor of other people’s woes.

Dottie blinks, then inhales deeply, like she’s taking in the perfumed scent of newly-bloomed spring flowers with the awaited pleasure of a long winter. “Oh, no one has called me that in ages,” she says. Peggy has come across six or seven pseudonyms that must be her, and another dozen that might be; she doesn’t know what she’d even start to call her. Dottie crosses her fingers and props them under her chin. “Now, this is why it’s so delightful to see old friends.” 

“So glad you just happened to be in London, then,” Peggy says. Dottie smiles blandly back; it was a weak attempt at fishing, and Peggy didn’t expect a response. 

“Yes, well. I find my latest opportunities are taking me further and further afield.” She looks at Peggy, unblinking, and Peggy holds herself very still. She has no idea for whom Dottie works, now, and she’s next to certain that Dottie knows that. “Maybe even to some of my old haunts.” 

Slowly letting her teacup return to the saucer, Peggy keeps her gaze very, very still. Dottie’s eyes are mild, unchallenging, but there is a slight twitch to the corner of her mouth. “That must be – exciting for you.” She can’t mean Kiev in ’53 or Prague three years before that: those were just follies, just passing nights. New York, then, or LA, or – or – earlier.

“I don’t know,” Dottie says, mildness gone and replaced by a weary hardness to the set of her eyes. “I think there are some parts of the past better left buried.” She wipes her hands, as though removing crumbs, and stands. 

Peggy does look up at her, this time, watches as she lifts the strap of her handbag to her shoulder and tucks her hair behind her ear. They’ve gotten so efficient, the two of them. 

Placing one hand on the back of Peggy’s chair, Dottie leans down and brushes her lips across Peggy’s cheek. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, as though this has been a perfectly normal condolence tea. Peggy watches the door for a long time after she leaves.

She doesn’t stop looking for the coded name, but the descriptions never again match Dottie’s. They’re all too young: far, far too young.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from H.D.'s "Chance Meeting":
> 
> ...  
> Our hands that did not touch,  
> might have met once,  
> might just have gathered   
> this one in this one;  
> impersonal fire, beyond us,  
> might have rushed  
> into our fingers;  
> we'd have known then   
> (being true)  
> one of the other...


End file.
